


no sweetener

by soulofme



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 2 minutes of Adam/Shiro, Angst, First Love, M/M, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 15:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15888630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofme/pseuds/soulofme
Summary: He’s pretty, pretty, pretty. Shiro stares at him and doesn’t hide it.He doesn’t write poetry. Doesn’t sing songs late at night, stare up at the stars and make up some corny line that someone’s eyes sparkle like them. But the longer he looks at Keith, the more he thinks he might.





	no sweetener

Keith Kogane is standing off by himself, arms crossed over his chest and head pressed back against the wall. He’s wearing all black, except his lips look cherry red because he keeps tearing at them with his teeth.

He’s pretty, pretty, pretty. Shiro stares at him and doesn’t hide it.

He doesn’t write poetry. Doesn’t sing songs late at night, stare up at the stars and make up some corny line that someone’s eyes sparkle like them. But the longer he looks at Keith, the more he thinks he might.

Matt sidles up next to him, catching him around the elbow and giving him a smile. It looks sympathetic, but Shiro guesses that’s just the light.

Matt says, “You good, dude?”

He’s jerking his chin towards the cup in Shiro’s hand, the cup that’s dripping condensation over his knuckles. It’s something bright red and cloyingly sweet, artificial cherries or strawberries or _whatever_.

“Not really,” Shiro admits. Doesn’t try to sound bashful about it.

Matt throws his head back and laughs. Loose. Loud. He’s drunk.

“Ready to go?” Shiro asks, because he’s itching to. Matt shakes his head.

“Not really,” he mirrors Shiro’s words and pats his shoulder hard enough to make him jerk. “Be right back.”

Shiro turns back to the wall and scowls.

Keith’s gone.

 

 

 

/

 

 

 

Shiro wastes his time at this café Allura works at. He sits at the counter and counts the freckles smattered across the bridge of her nose as she pumps chocolate syrup into a horribly overpriced coffee cup.

The door jingles and Keith comes in, hood drawn tight over his head. His eyes are bright when he looks at Shiro.

“Hey,” he says, breathless, and slides into the empty stool at Shiro’s right.

Allura gets this smile on her face, too wide, too mischievous.

She says, “Is this him?”

She knows about Keith. She knows that Shiro is hopelessly in love with him, and that Shiro would, quite honestly, take a bullet for him.

So Shiro _glares,_ because he knows damn well she's teasing. Keith laughs, quiet, forced, self-conscious, and a part of Shiro wants to curl up and die.

“He’s not interested,” Shiro says before he can stop himself, sounding disgustingly possessive.

Allura laughs, seeming more shocked than amused. Keith taps his fingers on the counter, considering something, and turns to Shiro with a raised brow.

“Are _you?_ ” he asks, bluntly like he always does. He's joking, of course, which he makes obvious by the sharp elbow he digs into Shiro's ribs.

It doesn't stop Shiro’s mouth from going bone dry, though.

 

 

 

/

 

 

 

Shiro likes feeling bad for himself. Doesn’t know how to do anything else, really, because he’s a pathetic bastard who hates himself Monday through Friday.

He sits on the curb of the sidewalk, with the blinding sunshine warming the back of his neck and the tips of his ears. He chews his nails down to nothing and counts the blades of grass that poke through the concrete before him.

Movement catches his eye and he sees Keith, motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm. He’s tapping at his phone furiously, the corner of his lips pulled tight into a phantom of a smile. It widens when he looks up and sees Shiro, the sunlight dancing off him and making him glow.

“Shiro!” he calls as he jogs over.

His cheeks are flushed red, his eyes fire-bright and earnest with _something_. Shiro swallows, swallows down around this lump in his throat, because he’s never seen something more beautiful.

It’s corny. He hates himself for thinking it.

“Hey, Keith,” he says, trying not to sound like the air has been punched out of his throat. “What’s up?”

“Uh, nothing,” Keith says. “You?”

Shiro gets this horrifically sour taste on the back of the tongue, like lemons and bleach and god knows what else.

He’s got a date with one of Allura’s friends later, Allan or Adam. Shiro keeps forgetting his name. He’s got glasses. And he wants to be an astronaut.

“Nothing,” Shiro says hollowly. His feels exhausted. He shoots Keith a grin, forced and fake. “See you later?”

“Sure,” Keith smiles brilliantly, hand raising in a parting wave. “See you!”

And then he’s off. Shiro watches his back, watches Keith until he speeds out of the parking lot of their shitty little high school, the rev of his motorcycle’s engine still echoing hours later when Shiro's sitting at table across from  _Adam_.

It feels good, to be selfish for a while and invest time in someone who’ll drink his attention up like they’re starving for it. The part of his brain that’s logical, and not a total asshole, screams at him to get up and leave. Adam doesn’t deserve this. Doesn’t deserve whatever the hell Shiro’s doing to him.

He ignores that part of him.

 

 

 

/

 

 

 

“I want to see a star,” Adam says, staring contemplatively at the sky.

It’s dark, late as hell, and Shiro should really get home. But the grass underneath him is soft, like a bed calling him home, so he pillows his arms behind his head and follows Adam’s gaze.

“Really?”

“Just once,” Adam says, laughing self-consciously. “Just to see what they’re really like.”

“They’re too bright,” Shiro murmurs before he can stop himself. “They’ll blind you. But they won’t care. They never will.”

He’s not talking about the stars. He knows Adam gets that, because he goes radio silent. Shiro doesn’t fill the void between them with useless words. He hears Adam exhale, once, twice.

“You’re in love with somebody, aren’t you?”

He’s leaning over Shiro, holding his weight up on his elbow. There’s an unreadable expression on his face Shiro doesn’t care to understand.

“Always will be,” he says, watching with sick satisfaction as something within Adam crumbles.

“I can make you forget,” Adam whispers. It sounds like a promise.

“Prove it.” He doesn’t mean it. He really, really doesn’t.

Adam kisses him.

It’s tentative, gentle, like he doesn’t know where he stands and doesn’t want to cross any boundaries. _Keith wouldn’t kiss him like that_ , Shiro tells himself.

 _Keith wouldn’t kiss him at all_ , Shiro’s brain pipes up viciously. Shiro chases the thought away.

Keith would be confident. Unforgiving. A hurricane touching down on ground, eviscerating everything in his path, flying away with one of those tiny little smirks, dark, dark, dark, with cherry red lips.

Pretty.

Pretty, and miles away, somewhere Shiro can’t even think of reaching.

 

 

 

/

 

 

 

They’re in college now, but nothing’s different. Shiro still chases after a feeling that's supposed to be love, tries to find it in nameless faces, in hands that feel nothing like he thinks they should.

“Maybe you’ll forget,” Matt says thoughtfully, swirling his beer around in a red plastic cup. It's a familiar image from high school. Some things never change. “People like that don’t stick around.”

Shiro ignores him, pressing his back against the rough brick behind him. He doesn’t know where they are. Some frat house on the fringes of campus, on the blurry line between college and the wild city nights he’s been hearing so much about.

“Shut up.”

“You can’t make homes out of people,” Matt says. Sounds like he ripped it out of a psychology textbook.

Maybe he has. His girlfriend’s a psych major. Shiro had told her she’d never go anything with that once, because he’d been drunk and bitter, and Matt had taken extreme care to keep the two of them away from each other ever since.

But that doesn’t stop her from glaring at Shiro whenever they happen to pass each other on campus.

“Shut _up_ , Matthew.”

Matt raises a slow, careful brow.

“Where’s Keith now, Shiro?” he asks, making a show of looking around them. “ _Gone_. You’ve gotta move on, man.”

Shiro slams his head back against the wall, distantly hoping that his skull will split right open. End his misery once and for all.

“You’re not being fair. Not to yourself, _or_ Adam. You know, your boyfriend?”

Shiro flinches.

“He knows what he got into.”

“It’s been two fuckin’ years, Shiro. What the hell are you doing?”

“Why do you care?” Shiro asks, with all the venom he can possibly inject into his voice.

Matt’s face goes through an array of emotions. Shiro looks away when he recognizes disappointment.

“I don’t,” Matt says, subdued. “Not anymore.”

 

 

 

/

 

 

He’s watching Keith from a distance, twenty years old and still piss-scared to get too close.

Keith’s throwing his head back, laughing at something the kid next to him is saying. He looks the same, pale skin and dark hair, beauty in all its glory, and Shiro aches for him.

Because Keith is pretty, pretty, _pretty_ , and Shiro doesn’t know how to resist him.

Adam dumped him exactly three hours ago. Told him to stop wasting his time, to go be with whoever it was that really had his heart.

Shiro doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s Keith, that it’s always been Keith, but Keith…

Keith will never be his.

For the first time, Keith’s eyes don’t seek his out in a crowd, don’t snap towards Shiro like they always do. They stay glued on his companion, and something inside Shiro burns and burns and _burns_.

Jealousy, maybe.

He stares into his cup of lukewarm coffee, willing himself to get up and walk away. He’d go. He’d forget all about Keith Kogane. Matt’s right. It’s time.

Shiro doesn’t get up. He drinks his coffee and stares out of the window at the people walking by. In his ear, like a little song, he hears Keith’s laugh.

Shiro closes his eyes and savors it.


End file.
